Fixed or immovable safe areas like refuge bays are a safety necessity for workers within a potentially dangerous environment, such as underground mines. Persons present at any location where unsafe conditions could be present should have access to a safe area when life endangering circumstances occur. Dangerous conditions may be caused by a variety of incidents like fires causing smoke and thus low visibility, escaping gases, heavy equipment failures, structure failures, earth cave-ins, and the like.
Unsafe places where fires are caused by combustible materials present, including open flames, spontaneous combustion, electricity, friction, blasting, and the like may endanger persons in that same environment and may cause considerable economic losses. In the event of an accident, personnel must immediately evacuate to the nearest safe location like a refuge bay as one possible solution.
Refuge bays in the mining industry are one of the safety necessities for personnel operating and maintaining the mine operations. Safe locations are established as soon as possible and may be located at short distances from each other in order to be reached quickly.
Safe locations usually consist of a refuge bay with one or more entrances. The entrance to the refuge bay should preferably be closed in an attempt to prevent the accumulation of dust, dangerous gases, and other undesirable elements within the refuge bay. The refuge bay may be equipped with a battery pack, battery charger, a fan, first aid kits, canisters with consumable fluids, an alarm, safety, medical and other survival equipment. Some refuge bays may have a means of assuring a flow of fresh air to the refuge bay, for example, an extended pipe or a link to the surface through a borehole pipe if the refuge bay is below the surface. Refuge bays should be inspected periodically to assure that the working condition of the equipment is acceptable. Disadvantages of the present inspections are that the entrances of the refuge bay may have been open for long periods, causing the accumulation of dust and/or other undesirable elements within the refuge bay. This may damage the equipment; for example, the ventilating fan for providing fresh air or the battery charger that maintains battery power.
A further disadvantage of the conditions present in such refuge bays is the lack of effective communication systems for locating the refuge bay sheltering workers.